


If we meet each other in hell

by EriksChampion



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Action/Adventure, M/M, Melodrama, journeys to the underworld, vaguely mythology-inspired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29373732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EriksChampion/pseuds/EriksChampion
Summary: Alternate version of DSOD in which Kaiba enters the Egpytian afterlife the right way.
Relationships: Kaiba Seto/Yami Yuugi | Atem
Comments: 18
Kudos: 18
Collections: Dark Valentines of Dimensions 2021





	If we meet each other in hell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Desidera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desidera/gifts).



> For Desidera, happy Valentine's Day!

Hell: a cold, dark cell buried in the belly of the earth. The chamber saw no light save the flash of Kaiba’s flashlight, heard no sound save his heavy footsteps and agitated breathing. This room had lied empty as the inside of a skull for one thousand years plus one thousand more--until three weeks ago. 

Kaiba frowned at the footprints still impressed in the dust of the chamber floor. One long line of feet all pointed forward in the center of the room; two pairs, near the wall, facing each other. They had approached--close enough for their owners to embrace. And here their paths diverged. One pair of feet turned back to its companions and returned home. The other disappeared. 

“Have you found what you were looking for?” Isis’ voice was clear, and cool, behind him.

Kaiba didn’t respond immediately. He followed the path of the second pair of footsteps, first with his gaze, then--

He stood where Atem had stood. In his mind he saw a sweep of blinding light, a body vaporized by a thunderclap of heat. Or, had it been dark? The thought of a human being dissolving into a darkness deeper than night made him shiver. His heart raced. Kaiba had seen the effects of death’s relentless chokehold on the living world, he had expected to see them here. He had not been prepared to meet an empty room, one which bore no trace of Atem’s memory save his footprints.

“Where did he go? Just--disappear--?”

“There was a doorway. He walked through it.”

Kaiba pressed his palm into the wall. It was cold, smooth in a way possible only for stone that had been spared the scourge of erosion. His hand curled into a fist.

“How?”

Isis hesitated over her reply. “There are rituals that can be performed, to open the door to the afterlife.”

“Hm.” Kaiba struggled to keep his breath controlled. Hand still pressed into the wall, he could swear that he could feel a heart beating through it. “Open it.”

Isis recoiled in shock. “Seto--?!”

“The Pharaoh still owes me my title.”

Malik chuckled behind them. Isis turned her sharp eyes towards him, which made him laugh harder.

“Malik, don’t encourage him!”

“Seems to me like Seto-sama’s got his mind all made up already.”

Isis turned back to Kaiba. “You told me that you only wanted to look.”

“I lied.”

“Seto, you can't possibly be thinking of going through there.”

“And what if I am? If the Pharaoh can go through then why can’t I?!”

“It’s different--he was--it was his time. He was going home.”

Kaiba snorted. “He was making a coward’s retreat.”

“You don’t know that! You--you’re alive! You belong here.”

Their eyes met in the dark. Isis flinched at the look that crossed his face--the complete absence of fear. “Where I belong is back at the top of the Duel Monsters leader board, and I’ll never get there so long as the Pharaoh is still out there somewhere refusing to face me.”

“You can’t possibly--you have no idea how dangerous--”

“Then please, enlighten me.”

Malik interrupted before Isis had a chance to speak. “Imagine shoving your soul through an industrial-strength meat grinder. And it’s all downhill from there.”

“Can you open it?”

“He can’t.” Isis said decisively. “Only I can do that and I have no intention of doing so.”

“Aren’t you the one who insisted that I embrace my connections to ancient Egypt?” 

“Not like this! Seto, the journey to the afterlife is treacherous! Even the strongest and most powerful of the ancient priests spent their lives in preparation for the trials that the gods set. And these were people who disembarked in their own natural time, not those who forced their way through the doorway. The gods test the very fabric of the soul, and if they find it wanting…”

“Well?”

“Just tell him, sister. Clearly Seto-sama’s not afraid of anything.”

“The soul enters the void. It’s the worst of all imaginable fates, to be condemned to wander the space between the worlds of the living and the dead, belonging to neither. Completely alone--forever…”

Hell: the fierce and desperate soul of Seto Kaiba. Sealed in his lab, under a dome of featureless pre-dawn sky. Realizing that he could craft the most angelic and exquisite images that the world had ever seen--sparkling beasts of light infinitely more brilliant and beautiful than anything that the artless hands of carbon could create. Realizing that his own brilliance was not enough. For, when he locked eyes with his facsimile of the Pharaoh, his own soul reached across the sprawling gulf--soul seeking soul, shame seeking victory, death seeking life--and he felt nothing reaching back. The string of victories against the computer simulation meant nothing. He had never known an emptiness that sealed so tight. His lab--his body, his mind--had never felt so much a tomb; he had never felt so cursed to reside within it.

“Sounds like a party.”

“The gods will rain their wrath down upon you!”

“And that just sounds like a quarterly board meeting.”

“Seto--”

Kaiba was already strapping on his duel disk. “My business with the Pharaoh isn’t settled. And it won’t be until I face him, the real him, and beat him. And until that happens I’ll never--” Kaiba finished adjusting the settings on his duel disk and it lit up in a shocking burst of silver-blue. “I’ll never be free. So are you going to open that door or what?”

Isis was stricken, still as if she were made of stone. “All this, for a duel? You would risk your life?”

“This is my life. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same.”

Isis gave him a curious look. There was something in his face that pricked her heart, reminded her of when she had faced him in Battle City and been so certain that, should she fail, the wind would pick up and sweep her into oblivion. She sighed. “Alright.”

Isis opened the dark doorway to the netherworld. Seto Kaiba did not turn back as he descended into it.

In his absence, Isis frowned deep. Their little cell fell more silent than ever. In the darkness, Malik chuckled. “That guy is one stupid freak.”

\--

Heaven: as much of the world as could fit under a single golden sunbeam. As gentle and as sweet as a palm frond swaying in the breeze, each sunny day dissolving into the ether, leaving behind not even the faintest flicker of a memory. This was the spotless world--there was not a substance in the entirety of the universe that could tarnish it; feeling simply slid off its surface and disappeared. Often--always--before Atem had the chance to touch it. 

Atem felt like he spent every day floating on his back up and down the river. Even now, lying stretched out in his palace courtyard, he felt like he was merely watching the horizon bob by with eyes only half-open, a wide distance between him and anything stable enough to stand upon.

He felt the shadow pass over his face first. Then the hot, humid breath. Atem looked up to see the face of a large black dog blotting out the sun, looking down at him and panting.

Atem stumbled to bow. “Anubis, to what do I owe the honor?”

Anubis regarded Atem with his head quirked just a touch to the side. His eyes had always been unreadable--two bright points of darkness--and the effect always made Atem feel almost pathetically transparent.

“There’s been a breach,” he said at last. “A mortal man has punctured the veil of the underworld, and is heading this way.”

“Oh!” Atem snapped to attention. “That--that sounds serious!...Is it serious? I feel like, the rules here...I’m still, uh--”

“It is serious, yes. The living are meant to live their lives on earth. If hordes of them are able to fight their way here, the very foundation of our world would crumble, and they may both be destroyed. We are in the process of testing his soul, in hopes of permanently discouraging this type of impudent behavior.”

“I see. what do you need me to do?”

Anubis leaned back into his haunches, and this time his grin was unmistakable. “I want you to go, and help him out for me.”

\--

Hell: a narrow bridge swaying over a river of fire, Seto clinging to the railing and furiously blinking ash out of his eyes. 

Seto Kaiba’s soul had wandered through darkness and conflagration. He’d conquered a giant alligator with a single well-timed blast from Paladin of White Dragon. One puff of the dragon’s smoke had been all it took to scare off a swarm of angry wasps. Dangling as he was over the brink of a world of fire and rage, Kaiba could feel laughter bubbling in his chest. He was getting closer. His soul had traveled farther than any mortal feet had ever touched. If the threads between his soul and the mortal plane were beginning to fray, he did not feel it. He was winning; he had no time for looking backwards.

The bridge swayed in the currents of caustic heat. Eyes half closed and burning, Seto saw a shadow-draped figure on the bridge, blocking his way.

Kaiba’s laughter was dark as thunder. “Another trial? Sent by the so-called all-power gods to try and stop me? You might as well step aside now. I’m not going back until I’ve gotten what I’m looking for.”

The shadow-figure started. “Kaiba?”

Kaiba recoiled. Training his eyes against the smoke and haze, he saw a pair of ruby-red eyes glowing back at him. “Pharaoh! What are you doing here? This--this is some kind of trick!”

“It’s not a trick, Kaiba.”

Kaiba’s duel disk activated. “So you’re here to duel, then. That’s just as well, I was getting bored waiting.” He pointed at Atem’s arm. “Get ready to duel, Pharaoh.”

A golden duel disk appeared on Atem’s arm, but he made no move to activate it. “Kaiba, this place is very dangerous. You shouldn’t have come here. Do you have any idea what kind of horror awaits you if you lose here, or anywhere after?” He gestured towards the ocean of fire below. “Unimaginable agony--forever.”

“Then it’s a good thing I don’t plan on losing, Pharaoh.” His voice dripped with rancor. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

“I’m trying to help you! If you would just listen--”

“The only thing you can do for me is get out of my way! Get out of my life, like you should have a long time ago!” 

Atem, small shadow creature, long-lost and long-wandering, regarded Kaiba with a small frown. “I thought that I had? I’m dead! How much more out of your life could I be?” 

Kaiba’s voice came from the very back of his throat--low, bitter, and charred. “You’ll never understand, will you? I have to defeat you! Every moment that passes without me being able to beat you is just another reminder that I will never be able to live freely until every memory I have of you is ground into dust and gone forever! Blue Eyes--attack! Now!”

They had found themselves in this stance so many times before. The pattern was as familiar as the sun’s journey round the earth, as elemental as the waves’ unrelenting buffet against the shore. Enemy faces enemy. One falls and one stands the victor. One lives, and the other lies in his tomb, cold and buried.

Hell: Atem’s anguished heart, as the full meaning of Anubis’ order sank in. Had he been sent here to help Kaiba, or banish his soul to oblivion? Long-lost and long-wandering, Atem had a proud mind but a tender heart. Had he and Kaiba not often stood on opposing sides? Had Atem not, in a streak foolish of pride, twice goaded him towards death? And yet, now, the thought of striking Kaiba down filled him with grief. How terrible even heaven would be, he thought, if he could not gaze down on the Earth and see the glow that Kaiba cast upon it. And, thus, in his final moment to decide, Atem screwed up all the courage of his tender heart to do the one thing he could imagine that might, with the gods’ mercy, nudge Kaiba back towards life.

Blue Eyes screeched and rounded on her enemy. 

“You’re right, I don’t understand. How can you still hate me with such intensity--to the point of death!--after everything--when all I’ve done since getting here is miss you.”

But what did she find? Kaiba had not seen--through the smoke, through the fire, through the anger and fear that clouded his own eyes--that, though he lifted his arm, Atem had summoned no monster to defend himself.

He reeled back from the force of Blue Eyes’ attack, and skidded towards the edge of the bridge, nearly toppling over the railing.

And, Kaiba, fearful creature of starlight and seafoam, long-lost and long-wandering, lunged to save him. 

Seto Kaiba’s soul had wandered through darkness and conflagration. He’d conquered those most monstrous of men. One lightning blast from his Blue Eyes had been all it took to send the Pharaoh, at last, to his knees. Yet, dangling as Atem was over the brink of obliteration, Kaiba could feel anguish rising in his heart. His soul had traveled farther into the heart of fear than any mortal feet had ever touched. And now, holding tight to Atem’s wrist, guiding him to his feet, surrounded by the towers of hell, he felt his soul begin its journey back. He hovered now not at the edge of the limits of the mortal soul, but over something far stranger. He had attacked. He had saved, and, in the saving, had in his turn been saved. The thought confounded him. Where he stood now: hovering delicately over the brink of what he would dare and dare not allow himself believe. 

Atem leaned into his chest. They were both breathing hard, trembling at the knees. 

“What was that, huh? You got a death wish or something?”

Atem chuckled through the smoke. “I just...forgot which monster I wanted to play.” He extended his hand and gently touched Kaiba’s cheek. The smoke around them cleared, and for the first time Kaiba could see Atem’s face clearly. He was smiling.

\--

“The afterlife has certain rules, you know, little one.” Anubis looked down at Kaiba. “Of which you’ve already broken several.”

“The law’s no object to me.” Kaiba said. He and Atem were standing before Anubis and a towering golden scale. They were holding hands, and as Kaiba spoke his grip on Atem’s hand grew tighter. 

“Evidently. But, bright and--impudent--as you may be, I think you will find here that some rules are...immovable.” 

Anubis flicked his head towards the golden scales. On one side appeared a delicate white feather, so small and soft it could have been plucked directly from an ibis’ tender breast.

“This is how it works: you pass this test, you’re allowed to remain here. You fail, and you go back down there,” Anubis gestured to the hall of fire, from whence Kaiba and Atem had emerged. “Forever.” 

“What do I have to do?”

“Very little, actually. The beauty of this final test is that you have done the bulk of it already. Knowingly or not you’ve spent your entire life taking this exam, but you receive the results now. It works like this, you put your heart on this side of the scale. If you’ve been kind and lead a just and honest life, your heart will be lighter than this feather, and you’ll be allowed to entire the field of reeds. But, on the other hand,” Anubis fixed Kaiba with his penetrating gaze. “If your life has been somewhat less than upstanding, your heart will sink, and you’ll be banished from this realm, and all other realms worth living in. Understand?”

Seto Kaiba was no stranger to the weight of his own heart. He felt it incessantly, this cold stone embedded in his chest, seat of darkness and conflagration. It gave him no peace, and let him forget him nothing.

But, with his hand in Atem’s tender hand, Kaiba thought of how he had seized that hand as it had teetered over flame and saved it. Like a sudden flood of sunlight amid endless rain, it had been impossible until the moment it occurred. He had saved, and, in the saving, had in his turn been saved. How wonderful it would be, Kaiba thought, if he could tilt his face into that impossible sunlight one more time.

“I understand.”

With hell’s gate breathing on his back, how beautiful it would be, he thought, to spend his final moments believing that it were possible.

“I’ll do it!”

Kaiba held Atem’s face and gently kissed his soft, puzzled mouth. Atem’s breath washed warm over his face, but he put a hand on Kaiba’s chest and gently pushed them apart.

“Kaiba? Are you sure that you want to do this?”

Kaiba answered with another kiss. Deeper, enveloping in its heat. Kaiba’s hand fixed tight in Atem’s hair--Atem, with one hand clasped on Kaiba’s arm and one arm flung round his neck; they were clumsy--how could they be anything but foolishly inept, with hearts so overcome with such helpless hope? 

They stumbled apart, dazzled and flushed, and unable to see anything but each other, haloed with stars, glowing shades of luminous pink. 

And Seto Kaiba relinquished his aching heart.

A more laughable sight the gods had never seen: Maat’s cloud-soft feather weighed against Seto Kaiba’s heart of mountainous coal. It fell so suddenly, Anubis would not have taken more than a moment to call the results of the exam, had Kaiba not started to speak.

“I--I’m not honest. I never have been. And I’ve never been kind, or just--never any more than I had to be. But--” he looked at Atem. “You asked me before how I could still hate you but the truth is I hate the way I don’t. Should I? You took away everything from me and I chased you here hunting it down. But--I think that I might have been looking for something else. You put me through hell and I know I’ve done the same, but,” Kaiba gazed down at his hand, the hand that held Atem’s hand. “I think if anyone could find something worth saving in the pits of hell, it’s us. And I want--I want to try.”

A more remarkable sight the gods had never seen: with every word Seto Kaiba spoke, his heart grew a little lighter. 

“Well, I have never seen anything quite like that,” Anubis said as Kaiba’s side of the scale continued to rise.

“Like he said, he plays by his own rules.” Atem was grinning, welcoming, reaching for him--

“But that doesn’t mean that he gets to stay. You see here,” Anubis pointed towards the scale, where Kaiba’s side of the scale hovered just an inch below Maat’s feather. “Close, but not quite close enough.”

Kaiba’s gaze fell.

“But--oh, uh, most honorable Anubis!, You can’t--there must, please, be something you can do!” Atem all but flung himself at his feet. 

And this, too, was quite a sight to see. Two souls--both grand and fearless, fragile and--in the eyes of a god--so incredibly small. They had fought so hard. They were not humble and they were not wise, but they had been so brave. And Anubis, patron and most beloved god of the long-lost and long-wandering, granted them a small smile.

“I believe that there might be one concession that I may make.”

Atem and Kaiba gazed up, a touch of light in their eyes.

“I don’t think you’ll like it. But,” he smirked. “You two have been nothing if not infinitely surprising…”

And Anubis told them the compromise that he was willing to make. 

Atem and Kaiba shared a victorious, joyous grin. 

“Oh, I think that will work for us just fine.”

\--

Heaven: the belly of hell. 

Atem and Kaiba embraced at the center of the narrow bridge.  
This was the deal they had made. That Kaiba would not join Atem in the field of reeds, and Atem could not accompany Kaiba home. But Anubis had granted them this one reprieve, their own private refuge from an entirety of loneliness.

When they wished to meet, Kaiba and Atem, no longer lost, no longer wandering, and no longer sick of heart, departed from the serenity of heaven, left behind the tumultuous earth, and held each other in the underworld.

**Author's Note:**

> "If we meet each other in hell, it's not hell" - Geoffrey Hill


End file.
